An attorney for the Chicago police officer charged with first-degree murder in the shooting of Laquan McDonald decried Friday what he called prejudicial comments by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and said he was likely to seek to have the trial moved outside Cook County.

Dan Herbert also said Officer Jason Van Dyke feared for his life after he and his family had received death threats.

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The release two months ago of a disturbing video showing Van Dyke shoot the teen 16 times as he walked away from police has roiled the city, leading to weeks of street protests, calls for Emanuel's resignation and the launch of a U.S. Justice Department investigation of the Police Department. Herbert has said Van Dyke feared for his life. McDonald, 17, was holding a knife with a 3-inch blade.

Little happened in court Friday on the high-profile case. Judge Vincent Gaughan met privately with attorneys in his chambers for about 15 minutes before holding a brief public session in his courtroom.

Speaking to reporters in the lobby of the Leighton Criminal Court Building after the hearing, Herbert criticized the mayor for tainting the jury pool with his public comments about McDonald's shooting. He said he planned to seek what's called a change of venue to another county but then backpedaled a bit by saying such a filing was probable.

Herbert hasn't committed to a jury trial, however. Most high-profile police misconduct cases end up before judges in bench trials.

"It's been dozens and dozens of comments where he's essentially indicted my client," Herbert said of Emanuel. "He's characterized my client's actions as being heinous without even seeing the videotape. So when the mayor of the city in which the pool of jurors is drawn from has taken such an adamant stance, it makes it extremely difficult for us to get a juror in here who is not predisposed to a finding of guilt."

Herbert appeared to be referring in part to a conference call Emanuel made to black ministers and community activists the day before the video was made public by court order in late November. Van Dyke was criminally charged that same day by State's Attorney Anita Alvarez.

"What happened here is wrong. There is no justification, and it's profoundly hideous, in my view," the mayor said then. "And it's a shock to your conscience of what happened, and it should not have happened."

As a handful of protesters demonstrated Friday outside the courthouse against Chicago police brutality, Herbert told reporters that Van Dyke was struggling personally and financially with his notoriety. He's been suspended without pay.

"It has impacted him quite a bit," he said. "He's received death threats. His family has received death threats. He's trying to make some money here and there with odd jobs. He's very concerned about his wife and his children and his own well-being."

"Every time he leaves his house he's fearful," the attorney said. "His life will never be the same again."

Herbert would appear to have an uphill fight to move the trial out of Cook County. Longtime criminal defense attorneys say changes of venue are rarely requested or granted because of the belief that biased jurors can be weeded out during jury selection.

However, it has been done in other high-profile murder trials. For the 1980 trial of serial killer John Wayne Gacy Jr., jurors were selected in Rockford, but the trial was held in Chicago. And nearly 50 years ago, a Cook County judge moved the trial of Richard Speck, who murdered eight nurses living in a Southeast Side town home, to downstate Peoria, citing the immense pretrial publicity.

To win a change of venue, veteran criminal defense lawyer Stephen Decker said, an attorney would typically hire a pollster to survey a random sample of Cook County residents on their views of the case and then submit an affidavit to the judge along with the extensive news media coverage.

If a judge granted a change of venue, the trial could be moved to a courthouse outside Cook County or jurors could be brought from another county to the Leighton Criminal Court Building, Decker said.

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Van Dyke, the first Chicago police officer in nearly 35 years to be charged with first-degree murder for an on-duty fatality, has pleaded not guilty to six counts of first-degree murder and one count of official misconduct.